Final Vote to Renew PATRIOT Act is Here--Take Action Now!

Last week, as Senators and Congresspersons met in conference to negotiate the final PATRIOT reauthorization bill, we had high hopes that they would add meaningful new checks and balances to the USA PATRIOT Act.

But EFF has obtained a draft of the final conference report (in three parts: one, two, and three). It is exactly what we feared: the same old PATRIOT Act, with a grab-bag of illusory reforms that will do little to curb abuse of the Act's most dangerous powers.

Indeed, the bill actually makes some PATRIOT powers worse. For example, even though the Washington Post recently revealed widespread abuse of the "National Security Letter" (NSL) power to secretly demand records of tens of thousands of ordinary Americans, the bill actually strengthens this power by adding new criminal penalties for NSL recipients who speak out about their experience.

The final bill defies the will of Congress, jettisoning reforms that were in the draft bills. Both the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly for four-year time limits or "sunsets" on three of the most dangerous powers. The sunset period in the final bill is seven years. This date is so far in the future that it will almost skip the next presidency, and it certainly isn't soon enough to ensure the Executive branch's continued accountability to Congress on PATRIOT's misuse. The bill renews every other power without any expiration, with only a few band-aid reforms.

Representative John Conyers described the final bill, as reported by the House/Senate conference:

The conference report represents a huge step back for civil liberties. Instead of using the sunset as an opportunity to rein in the many civil liberties abuses documented over the past four years, the Republicans have opted to expand the Patriot Act and to throw in a variety of pet bills and extraneous matters they were not able to pass otherwise.

We couldn't put it better ourselves.

You can still push for change in the bill, but time is short. We expect the House to vote tomorrow, with a Senate vote before the week is out. Please call your representative and senators now and ask them vote "no" on PATRIOT renewal.

Related Updates

President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, Christopher Wray, will begin his confirmation process next week, giving lawmakers an opportunity to press him on his previous statements about expansive surveillance authorities and aggressive copyright prosecution.
Defense of the USA PATRIOT Act During his tenure as Assistant Attorney General...

The U.S. Senate confirmed Kansas Republican Rep. Mike Pompeo to be the Director of the CIA late on Monday over concerns from several congressional Democrats, who warned that putting Pompeo at the head of the intelligence agency would threaten civil liberties.
In an impassioned floor speech, Sen. Bernie Sanders called...

Technology company leaders are reportedly meeting with President-elect Donald Trump and members of his transition team tomorrow in New York. Mr. Trump’s relationship with technology companies has been frosty, and his statements during the campaign and recent cabinet picks raise serious concerns about the...

The Patriot Act turns 15 today, but that’s nothing to celebrate.
Since President George W. Bush signed this bill into law on October 26, 2001, the Patriot Act has been ardently defended by its supporters in the intelligence community and harshly criticized by members of Congress, the tech industry, and...

“We are pleased that the courts seem to be recognizing that they have been, perhaps inadvertently, party to creating a culture of secrecy around the government’s use of surveillance tools,” said Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a reaction shared by several civil liberties groups.

USA Freedom requires the NSA to stop collecting our telephone records. An open question when the law passed was what should happen to the mountain of records the NSA has already collected. Will the records be destroyed? Will the NSA keep them? Will it be able to keep using...

San Francisco - A federal appeals court today ruled that the NSA's bulk collection of phone records is illegal, saying Congress didn't authorize collection of a ''staggering'' amount of information on Americans. The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S.Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit overturns...

You may have heard that the Patriot Act is set to expire soon. That’s not quite the case. The Patriot Act was a large bill, as were the reauthorizations that followed in 2005 and 2006. Not all of it sunsets. But three provisions do expire on June 1st: Section 215...

After months of negotiations, pressure from advocacy groups, and tens of thousands of messages from concerned citizens, the Senate failed to move the USA Freedom Act forward for a final vote. While it was a tough loss, a Republican Congress will be forced to take up NSA reform since...